Манипуляция розничными ценами при дальновидных покупателях

We consider decentralized supply chain (DSC) under resale price maintenance sellinga limited-lifetime product to forward-looking customers with heterogeneous valuations. When customers do not know inventory level, double marginalization in DSC leads to a higher profit and lower aggregate welfare than in centralized SC (CSC). When customers know the inventory, DSC coincides with CSC. Thus, overestimation of customer awareness may lead to overcentralization of SC with profit loss comparable with the loss from strategic customers. The case with unknown inventory is extended for an arbitrary number of retailers with inventory-independent and inventory-dependent demand. In both cases, the manufacturer, by setting a higher wholesale price, mitigates the inventory-increasing effect of competition and reaches the same profit as with a single retailer. A high viability of Resale Price Maintenance as a strategic-behavior-mitigating tool may serve as another explanation of why manufacturers may prefer this contract to a vertically integrated firm.